Publications by authors named "Zeng Xianting"

Article Synopsis
  • Sexually dimorphic behaviors, which differ between sexes, are common in animals, and this study focuses on the role of specific neurons related to these behaviors in the model organism C. elegans.
  • Researchers found that male C. elegans have a higher frequency of synaptic transmission and more synaptic vesicles at neuromuscular junctions compared to hermaphrodites, which affects their locomotion.
  • The protein UNC-43/CaMKII was identified as key in regulating synaptic transmission and vesicle abundance, and even transforming hermaphrodite neurons to male-like neurons produced similar male locomotion behaviors.
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Age-associated neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases are mainly caused by protein aggregation. The etiologies of these neurodegenerative diseases share a chemical environment. However, how chemical cues modulate neurodegeneration remains unclear.

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Vanadium oxides with multioxidation states and various crystalline structures offer unique electrical, optical, optoelectronic and magnetic properties, which could be manipulated for various applications. For the past 30 years, significant efforts have been made to study the fundamental science and explore the potential for vanadium oxide materials in ion batteries, water splitting, smart windows, supercapacitors, sensors, and so on. This review focuses on the most recent progress in synthesis methods and applications of some thermodynamically stable and metastable vanadium oxides, including but not limited to VO, VO, VO, VO, VO, VO, VO, and VO.

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Disturbed inhibitory synaptic transmission has functional impacts on neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. An essential mechanism for modulating inhibitory synaptic transmission is alteration of the postsynaptic abundance of GABARs, which are stabilized by postsynaptic scaffold proteins and recruited by presynaptic signals. However, how GABAergic neurons trigger signals to transsynaptically recruit GABARs remains elusive.

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Cilia are conserved organelles found in many cell types in eukaryotes, and their dysfunction causes defects in environmental sensing and signaling transduction; such defects are termed ciliopathies. Distinct cilia have cell-specific morphologies and exert distinct functions. However, the underlying mechanisms of cell-specific ciliogenesis and regulation are unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • Changes in neurotransmitter receptors at post-synaptic sites are crucial for regulating synaptic strength, prompting research into the proteins that help position these receptors.
  • This study focuses on the role of two scaffolding proteins, LIN-2/CASK and FRM-3/FARP, in the cholinergic neuromuscular junctions of C. elegans.
  • Knocking out or disabling these proteins greatly reduces both spontaneous and triggered postsynaptic currents by lowering the levels of specific acetylcholine receptors, indicating that LIN-2 and FRM-3 are essential for effective cholinergic signaling.
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Laryngeal squamous cell cancer (LSCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in head and neck tumors. Our previous study has revealed that hsa_circ_0006232 is abnormally expressed in LSCC. This study attempts to verify the biological role of hsa_circ_0006232 in LSCC.

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Stretchable electronics have advanced rapidly and many applications require high repeatability and robustness under various mechanical deformations. It has been described here that how a highly stretchable and reliable conductor composite made from helical copper wires and a soft elastomer, named eHelix, can provide mechanically robust and strain-insensitive electronic conductivity for wearable devices. The reversibility of the mechanical behavior of the metal-elastomer system has been studied using finite element modeling methods.

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The development of functional synapses in the nervous system is important for animal physiology and behaviors, and its disturbance has been linked with many neurodevelopmental disorders. The synaptic transmission efficacy can be modulated by the environment to accommodate external changes, which is crucial for animal reproduction and survival. However, the underlying plasticity of synaptic transmission remains poorly understood.

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Vanadium dioxide (VO2) is a well-known thermochromic material with large IR modulating ability, promising for energy-saving smart windows. The main drawbacks of VO2 are its high phase transition temperature (τ(c) = 68°C), low luminous transmission (T(lum)), and weak solar modulating ability (ΔT(sol)). In this paper, the terbium cation (Tb(3+)) doping was first reported to reduce τ(c) and increase T(lum) of VO2 thin films.

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Dissolution resistance and adhesion strength are two main concerns for long-term stability of surface coated metal implants. In this study, fluorine ions are incorporated into magnesium-containing hydroxyapatite coatings (MgF(y)HA) via sol-gel method to improve the long-term stability of the implants. Surface and interface are studied in terms of phases, depth profiling and chemical bonds by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy.

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Investigation of DNA-protein interactions is fundamental to understand the mechanism underlying a variety of life processes. In this article, various types of biochemical methods in DNA-protein interaction study in vivo and in vitro at the level of DNA, protein, and the complex, respectively were briefly reviewed. Traditional assays including Nitrocellulose filter-binding assay, Footprinting, EMSA, and Southwestern blotting were summarized.

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Electrochemistry-based detection methods hold great potential towards development of hand-held nucleic-acid analyses instruments. In this work, we demonstrate the implementation of in situ electrochemical (EC) detection method in a microfluidic flow-through EC-qPCR (FTEC-qPCR) device, where both the amplification of the target nucleic-acid sequence and subsequent EC detection of the PCR amplicon are realized simultaneously at selected PCR cycles in the same device. The FTEC-qPCR device utilizes methylene blue (MB), an electroactive DNA intercalator, for electrochemical signal measurements in the presence of PCR reagent components.

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Initial cell attachment and spreading of anchorage-dependent cells onto the material surface are crucial concerns for the development of more effective implants. In this study, MG63 cells were employed to investigate the initial cell response to sol-gel derived fluoridated hydroxyapatite (FHA) coatings. Along with that, surface roughness, wettability, and protein adsorption were also characterized for those FHA coatings, respectively.

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Fluoridated hydroxyapatite (FHA) coatings were deposited onto Ti6Al4V substrates by sol-gel dip-coating method. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results showed that fluoride ions were successfully incorporated into the hydroxyapatite (HA) lattice structure. The dissolution behavior in Tris-buffered physiological saline indicated that all fluoridated HA coatings had lower solubility than that of the pure HA coating.

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